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A Memoir on Ireland Native and Saxon
Daniel O'Connell
First published in 1843
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CHAP. VIII
Years 1800 – 1829
1) The alleged object of the Union was to consolidate
the inhabitants of both islands into one nation – one people. The
most flattering hopes were held out, the most solemn pledges were vowed
– Ireland was no longer to be an alien and a stranger to British
liberty. The religion of the inhabitants was no longer to be a badge
for persecution – the nation were to be identified – the
same privileges – the same laws – the same liberties.
They trumpeted, until the ear was tired and all good taste nauseated, the hackneyed quotation, the “Paribus se legibus” – the “Invictae gentes” – the “Eterna in federa.”
2) These were words – Latin or English, they were mere words – Ireland lost everything and got nothing by the Union.
Pitt behaved with some dignity when he resigned the office of Prime
Minister, on finding that George the Third refused to allow him to
redeem the Union pledge of granting Catholic Emancipation. But that
dignity was dragged in the kennel, when he afterwards consented to be
Minister with his pledge broken and his faith violated. Yet there are
still “Pitt Clubs” – are there not? – in
England!!! |
Daniel O'Connell addresses a Monster Meeting
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3) Ireland lost everything and gained nothing by the Union.
There is one great evil in the political economy of Ireland. There is
one incurable plague-spot in the state of Ireland. It is, that
nine-tenths of the soil belong to absentees. This evil was felt as a
curse pregnant with every possible woe even before the Union. It has
enormously increased since – the Union must inevitably have increased,
and must continue to increase absenteeism. Even all the establishments
necessary to carry on the Government save one – that of the Lord
Lieutenant – have become absentees.
4) Ireland lost all and gained nothing by the Union.
Every promise was broken, every pledge was violated. Ireland struggled,
and prayed, and cried out to friends for aid, and to Parliament for
relief.
5) At length a change came over the spirit of our proceedings. The
people of Ireland ceased to court patronage, or to hope for relief from
their friends. They became “friends to themselves,” and after
twenty-six years of agitation, they forced the concession of
Emancipation. They compelled the most powerful as well as the most
tricky, the most daring as well as the most dexterous, of their
enemies, to concede Emancipation.
6) WELLINGTON and PEEL –
blessed be heaven – we defeated you. Our peaceable combination,
bloodless, unstained, crimeless, was too strong for the military glory
– bah! of the one, and for all the little arts, the debasing chicanery,
the plausible delusions, of the other. Both at length conceded, but
without dignity, without generosity, without candour, without
sincerity. Nay, there was a littleness in the concession almost
incredible, were it not part of public history. They emancipated a
people, and by the same act they proscribed an individual. PEEL and
WELLINGTON, we defeated and drove you before us into coerced
liberality, and you left every remnant of character behind you, as the
spoil of the victors.
7) There was an intermediate period in which
Emancipation could have been conceded with a good grace, and would have
been accepted as a boon. It was the year 1825. In that year, when
everything favoured the grant of Emancipation – when it could
have been granted with grace and dignity – when it could have
been bestowed as the emanation of the mighty minds of statesmen and
conquerors, - in 1825, Wellington and Peel successfully opposed
Emancipation, and thus preserved that, which might have been their
glorious triumph, to become the instrument of their own degradation.
8) Let it not be forgotten that the House of Commons
three times during these twenty-nine years passed an Emancipation bill;
but that bill was, each of those times, rejected by the House of Lords.
The Lords however yielded to the fourth assault, backed as it was by
the power of the Irish nation. We at length defeated the perpetual
enemy of Ireland – the British House of Lords.
9) Let it be recollected that our struggle was for
“freedom of conscience.” Oh how ignorant are the men who
boast of Protestant tolerance, and declaim on Catholic bigotry! This
calumny was one of the worst evils we formerly endured. At present we
laugh it to scorn. The history of the persecutions perpetrated by the
Protestant Established Church of England, upon Catholics on the one
hand, and upon Presbyterians and other Protestant dissenters on the
other, is one of the blackest in the page of time.
10) The Irish Catholics, three times since the
Reformation restored to power, never persecuted a single person –
blessed be the great God!
CHAP. IX
Years 1829 – 1840
1) There never was a people on the face of the earth,
so cruelly, so basely, so unjustly treated as the people of Ireland
have been by the English Government.
2) The Catholics being emancipated, the people of
England had leisure to awaken to a sense of the delusions practised
upon them by false alarms on the score of religion and loyalty. The
delusion was most valuable to the deluders. At length the monstrous
nature of what was called Parliamentary representation stared the
British people in the face. It was, perhaps, the greatest and most
ludicrous farce that had even been played on the great stage of the
world. Luckily a blunder, such as no man out of a madhouse had ever
before committed – a blunder of the Duke of Wellington –
brought the absurdity and oppression of this farce into so glaring a
point of view, as to render it impossible to be continued. He, as a
Prime Minister of England, declared his conviction that the nomination
and rotten-borough system of England, was THE ACTUAL PERFECTION OF
POLITICAL SAGACITY – NAY, HE ALMOST EXALTED IT INTO AN EMANATION
OF A DIVENER MIND. |
This was irresistible – common sense revolted – Reform was inevitable.
3) Again, the most gross and glaring injustice was
done to Ireland. It is admitted that, without the aid of the Irish
members, Reform could not have been carried. Even the most malignant of
our enemies, Stanley, has admitted that fact. To the Irish, therefore,
a deep debt of gratitude was due from the British Reformers. But how
have we been requited? We have been treated with the basest and most
atrocious ingratitude.
4) We are still suffering under the ingratitude of
the British Reformers – under the consistent injustice of the
British Tories.
Under four heads I will, as briefly as possible, sketch our complaints;
- not the abject complaint of those who have no hope in, and no
reliance upon, their own virtue. I make the complaint in the language
of a freeman. I make it on behalf of a people who have made others
free, and who deserve to be free themselves. As my only preface, I
desire these four facts to be remembered. |
A gathering organised by Daniel O'Connell
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1st. That the Irish Representatives turned the scale of victory, and carried the English Parliamentary Reform Bill.
2nd. They equally, and by the same Act, carried the Scotch Reform Bill.
3rd. They equally, and by inevitable consequence, carried the English Municipal Reform Bill.
4th. They equally carried the Scotch Municipal Reform Bill.
5th. Even if they had not these merits, they were entitled, unless the
Union be an insulting mockery, they were – the Irish were –
on the plainest principles of common sense, entitled to equal measures
of Reform with England and Scotland. This the Union entitled them to.
But their case has this glorious adjunct to its right – namely,
that they had principally contributed to obtain Reform for the two
other countries.
5) The complains of the Irish people are these:
My first complain is, that the Irish did not get an equal Parliamentary Reform Bill with Scotland or with England.
“1st. Ireland did not get the proper portion of representatives.
Wales got an increase of six members upon a population of 800,000.
Scotland, upon a population of 2,300,000, got an increase of eight.
Ireland, upon a population of 8,000,000, got an increase of five.
“Scotland increased her representatives by one in five –
Wales by one in six – Ireland by one in ten!!! and even one of
these was given against not for Ireland – the second member for the University of Dublin. But let it be one in ten.
“Thus the original iniquity of the Union in respect to
representation was enhanced by the Reform Bill. Ireland, upon the score
of population and property, was entitled to 176 members out of 658
– we offered to take 125.
“2nd. The next and still greater injustice done to Ireland was in the nature of the franchise.
“In the towns, though the franchise is nominally the same, yet it
is substantially and really infinitely greater in Ireland than in
England. A house worth ten pounds a year, gives the franchise in London
and in Liverpool. How few, how very few houses are there in either not
worth ten pounds a year?
“A house worth ten pounds a year gives the franchise in Ennis or
in Youghal. How few houses are in there in these towns, or similar
towns in Ireland, worth ten pounds a year? To be just, this franchise
should, for a ten pound house in England, allow a five pound house in
Ireland. I complain of the injustice thus done us, by making that
nominally the same which is substantially different.
“In the county constituencies, the injustice was still more glaring. We have, in fact, but two franchises for the people – they are both of ten pounds clear annual value, ruled
to be above rent – an enormously high rate of franchise –
the one of a freehold tenure, the other for a term of twenty years.
“Contrast this with England; which, by her Reform Bill, multiplied her franchises to nine different and distinct species.
“England, a rich country, has nine different species of
franchise, to meet every gradation of property, including in them the
more ancient 40s. freehold franchise.
“Ireland, infinitely the poorer country, has, in fact, for her
people, only two franchises, and these so enormously high as ten pounds
clear annual value.
“Perhaps the annals of history never displayed a more disgusting
injustice than was thus committed by the Irish Reform Bill upon the
Irish people.
“The THIRD base act of ingratitude committed by the English
Reformers upon the people of Ireland, was the ‘base and
bloody’ Coercion Act, in the very spirit in which Cromwell and
Ireton acted. In that very spirit the first reformed Parliament passed
the atrocious Coercion act, as the reward of the Irish people for their
successful efforts in the cause of Reform: yes – Anglesey,
Stanley, Lord Grey, Brougham, all, all joined in recompensing us for
our patriotic exertions in their behalf, by abolishing all
constitutional liberty, by annihilating the trial by jury, and leaving
the lives, liberties, and properties of the people of Ireland, at the
mercy of military caprice, violence, or passion.
“Sacred Heaven! – were there ever a people so cruelly, so
vilely treated as the people of Ireland? Here, indeed, was a specimen
of the gratitude of British Reformers!!!
“The FOURTH complaint I have to make affects only the British
Tories. This injustice is done to the people of Ireland by the House of
Lords. England has reformed Municipal Corporations – Scotland has
reformed Municipal Corporations.
“Ireland was for several years pertinaciously refused reformed Municipal Corporations.
“Ireland has been still more outrageously insulted by the
Corporate Reform Bill, which has been at length – I will not say
conceded, but flung to her – as one would fling offal to a dog.
“Ireland has been insulted by the Irish Corporate Reform Bill, flung to her after so many years of refusal;
“Firstly – Because by the Irish Corporate Reform Bill the
new Corporations are eviscerated of all the real power and authority
necessary to enable them to give protection to the people in the
corporate towns and cities; to enable them to watch over the
administration of justice; to introduce economy in the expenditure, and
moderation in the levying, of local taxes. In short, the Irish
Corporate Reform Act has produced a mongrel species of Corporation more
dead than alive; powerless and paralyzed.
“Secondly – The Irish Corporate Reform Bill is an insult to
the people of our towns and cities by the contrast of the municipal
franchise in England compared with that in Ireland. In the English
towns and cities every man rated to the poor, no matter at how low an
amount, is entitled to the municipal franchise, and to be placed
accordingly on the Burgess Roll. In Ireland, on the contrary, no man is
entitled to the municipal franchise or to be placed on the Burgess
Roll, unless he is rated to the full amount of ten pounds. The law thus
includes all the English who are rated at all; and excludes at the same
time all the Irish who are rated at any sum under ten pounds, and who
form a most numerous class. And this insult is aggravated by those who
say that there is a union between England and Ireland! – Bah!
“Thirdly – Another contrast renders the Irish Corporate
Reform Bill a yet more aggravated insult to the Irish people. It is
this:- In the English towns and cities each person on the Burgess Roll
has his right to vote qualified by the condition of paying only one
tax; namely, the poor rate, including (if any) the Burgess rate;
whereas in Ireland, (for example, in the city of Dublin,) every person
on the Burgess Roll has his right to vote qualified by the necessity of
paying at least NINE – and, almost in all instances no less than
ELEVEN different taxes: a necessity which reduces the number of persons
actually entitled to make use of the municipal franchise by at least
one-third.”
There are other points of inferiority in the Irish Corporate Reform
Bill which I scorn to take the trouble of noticing. The complaint I
make is sufficiently intelligible to justify our indignation and utter
disgust.
With this complaint I close the catalogue of actual wrongs perpetrated upon Ireland since the passing of the Emancipation Bill.
7) There remains the question of tithes, now called Tithe Rent Charge.
Ireland feels the ancient and long contained injustice to the
heart’s core. The Catholic people of Ireland support and maintain
a perfect hierarchy in their own Church. – They support four
Archbishops – twenty-five Bishops – many Deans –
Vicars-general – with more than three thousand parish Priests and
Curates, to administer to the spiritual wants of about seven millions
of Christians. Can they – ought they to be content to be
compelled to contribute anything to the support of a hierarchy with
which they are not in communion? No! – they are not – they
cannot – they ought not to be content whilst one atom of the
present tithe system remains in existence.
If tithes be public property – and what else are they? –
alleviate the burthen on the public, and appropriate the residue to
public and national purposes, especially to education. This is common
sense and common honesty. We can never settle into contentment with
less. |
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